Tainted Blood

15

The doctor lived in a town house on the west side of the Grafarvogur suburb. He no longer held a regular medical practice. He welcomed Erlendur at the door himself and showed him into the spacious hallway that he used as an office. He explained to Erlendur that he now did occasional work for lawyers on cases of disability assessment. The office area was simply furnished, tidy, with a little desk and typewriter. The doctor was a short, rather thin man with sharp features. He had a sprightly manner about him. He carried two pens in the breast pocket of the shirt he was wearing. His name was Frank.

Erlendur had phoned beforehand to arrange an appointment. The afternoon was wearing on and it was beginning to get dark. Back at the station, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg huddled over a photocopy of a 40-year-old register of the inhabitants of Husavk which had been faxed to them by the local government office in the north. The doctor asked Erlendur to sit down.

"Isn't it just a pack of liars who come to see you?" Erlendur asked, looking around the office.

"Liars?" the doctor said. "I wouldn't say that. Some of them, undoubtedly. Neck injuries are the most tricky. You really can't do anything but believe patients who complain of neck injuries after a car accident. They're the most difficult to handle. Some feel more pain than others but I don't think there are many who aren't genuinely in a great deal of discomfort."

"When I phoned you remembered the girl in Keflavik immediately."

"That sort of thing's difficult to forget. Difficult to forget the mother. Kolbrun, wasn't that her name? I understand she committed suicide."

"It's a bloody tragedy from start to finish," Erlendur said. He wondered whether to ask the doctor about the pain he felt in his chest when he woke up in the mornings, but decided this was not the time. The doctor was bound to discover he was fatally ill, send him to hospital and he'd be playing the harp with the angels by the weekend. Erlendur tried to avoid bad news whenever possible and, as he didn't expect to hear any good news about himself, he kept quiet.

"You said it was to do with the murder in Nordurmyri," the doctor said, snapping Erlendur back to reality.

"Yes, Holberg, the murder victim, may have been the father of the girl in Keflavik," Erlendur said. "The mother claimed so all along. Holberg neither confirmed nor denied it. He admitted having sex with Kolbrun so rape couldn't be proved against him. Often there's very little evidence on which to base that kind of case. We're investigating the man's past. The girl fell ill and died in her fourth year. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I don't see how that could have anything to do with the murder case."

"Well, we'll see. Could you answer my question please?"

The doctor took a good long look at Erlendur.

"It's probably best for me to tell you straight-away, Inspector," the doctor said, as if steeling himself for something. "I was a different man at that time."

"A different man?"

"And a worse one. I haven't touched alcohol for almost 30 years now. I'll be honest about this up front, so you don't need to put yourself to any more bother, I had my GP licence suspended from 1969 to 1972."

"Because of the little girl?"

"No, no, not because of her, though that would have been ample reason in its own right. It was because of drinking and negligence. I'd rather not go into that unless it's absolutely necessary."

Erlendur wanted to let the matter rest there, but couldn't restrain himself.

"So you were drunk more or less all those years, you mean?"

"More or less."

"Was your GP licence reinstated?"

"Yes."

"And no other trouble since then?"

"No, no other trouble since then," the doctor said, shaking his head. "But, as I say, I wasn't in a good state when I looked after Kolbrun's girl. Audur. She had head pains and I thought it was child migraine. She used to vomit in the mornings. When the pain got worse I gave her stronger medication. It's all rather a blur to me. I've chosen to forget as much as I can from that time. Everyone can make mistakes, doctors too."

"What was the cause of death?"

"It probably wouldn't have made any difference if I'd acted faster and sent her to hospital," the doctor said thoughtfully. "At least that's what I tried to tell myself. There weren't many paediatricians around then and we didn't have those brain scans. We had to act much more on what we felt and knew and, as I said, I didn't feel anything much except the need to drink in those years. A messy divorce didn't help. I'm not making excuses for myself," he said with a look at Erlendur, although he obviously was.

Erlendur nodded.

"After about two months, I think, I started to suspect it could be something more serious than child migraine. The girl didn't get any better. It didn't let up. She just got worse and worse. Withered away, got very skinny. There were a number of possibilities. I thought it might be something like a tubercular infection of the head. At one time the stock diagnosis was to call it a head cold when actually no-one had a clue. Then the hypothesis was meningitis, but various symptoms were absent; it works much faster too. The girl got what they call cafe au lait on her skin and I finally started thinking about an oncogenic disease."

"Cafe au lait?" Erlendur said, remembering he had heard this mentioned before.

"It can accompany oncogenic diseases."

"You sent her to Keflavik hospital then?"

"She died there," the doctor said. "I remember what a tragic loss it was for the mother. She went out of her mind. We had to tranquillise her. She flatly refused to let them do an autopsy on the girl. Screamed at us not to do it."

"But they did an autopsy all the same."

The doctor hesitated.

"It couldn't be avoided. There was no way."

"And what transpired?"

"An oncogenic disease, like I said."

"What do you mean by an oncogenic disease?"

"A brain tumour," the doctor said. "She died of a brain tumour."

"What kind of brain tumour?"

"I'm not sure," the doctor said. "I don't know whether they studied it in depth though I expect they probably did. I seem to recall mention of some kind of genetic disease."

"Genetic disease!" Erlendur said, raising his voice.

"Isn't that the fashion these days? What does this have to do with Holberg's murder?" the doctor asked.

Erlendur sat there deep in thought.

"Why are you asking about this girl?"

"I have these dreams," Erlendur said.